Earth Wet When Moon Formed

Earth wet when moon formed, claim scientists in articles in New Scientist and Nature News 9 May 2013, ABC News in Science 10 May 2013, and Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1235142 9 May 2013. Ever since water was found combined in moon rocks, in the1970s, scientists have wondered where it came from. Water on the earth is theorised by some to have come from asteroids named carbonaceous chondrites, but acquiring water this way is claimed to take a long time and the current theory of the origin of the moon does not give it enough time to get water this way.

The moon is believed to have formed from molten material ejected from the early earth when a proto-planet named Thaeia collided with it some 4.5 billion years ago. Any water and gases should have boiled away and vaporised off. For any water or hydrogen to be included in moon rocks it must have been delivered before the moon solidified – a process that could have occurred in only one month. According to Alberto Saal of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island the water “had to come from the only thing that we know had water: the Earth.”

Saal and colleagues from two other American universities studied the ratio of different hydrogen isotopes in volcanic glass melt inclusions trapped in olivine crystals in Moon rocks collected by the Apollo astronauts. They found “lunar magmatic water has an isotopic composition that is indistinguishable from the bulk water in carbonaceous chondrites and similar to terrestrial water, implying a common origin for the water contained in the interiors of the Earth and Moon.”

The next question is: how come the early earth had enough water to give some to the moon? The current evolutionist theory of earth formation is that it coalesced from materials in a swirling nebula that became the sun and solar system. The moon-forming impact is believed to have occurred only 100 million years after the earth solidified. However, the earth is too close to the sun to have retained any water that may have been in the nebula material, and 100 million years is not enough to have acquired a so much water from meteorite strikes. Saal claims: "The implication, although I cannot absolutely prove it, is that probably the Earth formed with water." To get around the problem of the early earth being too close to the sun to retain water New Scientist reports: “Saal thinks that Earth may have formed near where the asteroid belt is now, which is far enough from the sun for water to condense. The planet would then have migrated inward.”

According to Nature News: “the isotopic match between Earth and lunar water and carbonaceous chondrites supports a startling theory about the evolution of the inner Solar System, Saal says. According to this theory, known as the 'grand tack' model, the youthful planet Jupiter temporarily migrated into the inner Solar System, destabilizing the orbits of water-rich carbonaceous chondrites, which originally resided farther out than the birthplace of Jupiter and Saturn. As a result, some of the bodies could have fallen inwards and become part of the raw material for making Earth and its neighbours.”

Editorial Comment: In amongst these convoluted theories of asteroids, proto-planets and migrating planets there is a grain of truth – the earth had water when it was formed. How can we be sure? The Creator, who made the earth, moon and planets, specifically told us in Genesis 1:1-5. If scientists, who weren’t there, took notice of the Creator, who was there, they would have no need for such contorted ever changing stories about Jupiter and Earth migrating in and out, and a proto-planet whose existence is as mythical as the goddess it is named after.

These scientists are actually fulfilling a prophecy given by the Apostle Peter nearly 2,000 years ago who wrote that “scoffers will come” and “deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.” (2 Peter 3:3-5) (Ref. astronomy, solar system, planets)